Language School

The other interns and I just returned from two weeks at language school. We went to a small school in a really small town called Tuis, both of which were incredibly charming. Two young guys started the school about 5 years ago. The 2 guys, Hector and Daniel, met each other at a church in San Jose about 10 years ago. They played together in the worship band and discovered that they shared the same dream of using their talents to reach the nations. Anyways… to make a long story short, the guys have realized their dream and now direct the language school as well as a ministry to disabled indigenous people from the area. It’s incredible to see how the Lord has blessed the town and the world through their ministry!

I lived about a 20-minute walk outside of town with an older couple and their daughter. My host parents, Don Mecho and Dona Macha, were incredible and really made me feel like family. Dona Macha and I spent some good quality time together discussing life, showing each other pictures of our families, and habitually watching really cheesy Mexican soap operas! I really enjoyed my time with them... even though I always disappointed Macha when I couldn't finish the giant meals that she fed me. I think food is her love language!

We had Spanish classes for about 25 hours per week, and then we also had a couple cooking classes, and time to hang out with the indigenous residents. The four interns were split up into two different classes… Steph and Brad and then me and Josh. Josh and I had class in the tree house classroom with our professor Henry. We spent our time together discussing tough life topics, discussing the bible, learning crazy grammar rules, and reading some really great literature! I really enjoyed all of our class time... but I'm really frustrated at this point in my language learning journey! The learning curve has really flattened out and I feel like it takes so long to see any improvement! Oh well... I'll just keep plugging away!

On Friday, we broke early from classes to have a little graduation ceremony for the four of us. Each of us were presented a certificate by our respective professors which said some really sweet words about us. Then each of us was expected to demonstrate our newly refined language skills by giving a little speech! It was a little scary, but we all survived because everyone really felt like family!

To finish off the week, we headed to the nearest large town (Turrialba) to meet up with a rafting company. We spent all day on Saturday rafting down the Pacuare river! So fun... We drove about 45 minutes to the river drop off, rafted for about 2 hours (through a few class 4 rapids), stopped off on the side of the river and had a delicious freshly-prepared meal, rafted for another couple hours, swam through this beautiful peaceful cliff-wall section of river, and the hopped back in the van and headed back to the city! A wonderful way to cap off our time away at language school!

The next day we headed back 'home' via 3 different buses. It was really sad to leave because Tuis has really become a home to us! I think all of us will be heading back there soon to be with our new friends and family!